Enchanted hair
Ann Jones was my best friend Lisa's little sister. She had not made any particular impression on me. Among the children in her class she was not known for brightness at her lessons, or for liveliness in class. But, by the time Lisa spoken to me about her, I was aware of Ann as a particularly stable and pleasant girl. Stable seems an odd word to describe a six-year-old, yet it seems to be her vital quality. She was always polite and friendly.
Her appearance was no way exceptional, yet there was something neat about her. Her shining hair was fair, beautifully brushed and neatly plaited; her big grey eyes were always serious to what was going on. She seemed a model pupil, and, though she never came top in any subject apart from spelling, she seemed unlikely ever to cause her parents or teachers the slightest worry.
It was, therefore, a huge surprise when Lisa came to see me, clearly distressed, one night just as I was about to go to bed. "Tiffany, I'm sorry to trouble you so late, but I'm worried about Ann, I don't know what to do for the best."
"About Ann?" I was really amazed. " But she's the quietest little girl I know."
"I know and she's always been at home, but just lately something's got into her."
"Well, everyone goes phases," I began vaguely. "What's wrong with Ann?"
"It's to do with her hair."
"Her hair?"
Then it did occur to me that for the last week or two, Ann's hair had not been so shiningly neat.
"What about her hair, then, Lisa?"
"Well, I don't know how to put it so you won't think either I or my sister is crazy - " I noticed that Lisa had tears in her eyes - "but she's got this notion that there's people living in her hair."
A lot of possibilities flashed through my mind. "You're quite sure, Lisa, that it's ...
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"It's to do with her hair."
"Her hair?"
Then it did occur to me that for the last week or two, Ann's hair had not been so shiningly neat.
"What about her hair, then, Lisa?"
"Well, I don't know how to put it so you won't think either I or my sister is crazy - " I noticed that Lisa had tears in her eyes - "but she's got this notion that there's people living in her hair."
A lot of possibilities flashed through my mind. "You're quite sure, Lisa, that it's not a simple case of nits, or something like that?"
"Tiffany! How could you think such a thing? Ann's always washed her hair every night."
" Her hair does always look clean." I said quickly, so I won't offend her.
"Well, if that is the case, you don't think it's possible that she imagines she has something of the sort? Kids sometimes have such odd worries."
"No, tiffany, no, it's not like that. No, it's people she says are living on top of her head. In among the hair, she says the hair seems like a forest to them."
"She's playing a game with you, Lisa," I suggested.
" A game it may be, sir, but it's dead serious to her," Lisa said worriedly. "Every day I have the job, to get her hair brushed. 'Don't do that, Lisa, you'll drive them out of the forest,' she says, and screams and screams. And lately, I've begun to wonder if she's going mental." All about chariots, armies and temples, it's not right, it really isn't. And sometimes what she says doesn't make sense at all, I can't understand anything she says, and she'll go on like that for hours."
"Did you mention this to Dr Somers?"
"Well, I did. I didn't take Ann to the surgery because I thought It may scare her, I just told him, and he fairly snapped my head off and said she was a perfectly healthy child and not to fuss him with a bit of kid's play."
"Well, what did you want me to do, Lisa?"
"Oh, tiffany, if you could just talk to Ann about it a bit! She thinks the world of you could just reason this nonsense out of her head - "
She looked at me rather blankly, so I promised that I would see what I could do. "Supposing I take Ann for a walk, tomorrow, after school. So it won't seem like an interview."
"Tiffany, I don't know how to thank you -"
I pointed out that I haven't done anything yet, but she went away clearly relieved to have pushed the responsibility on to somebody else, even if only temporarily.
Next afternoon Ann agreed, to take a walk with me. I thought there was no sense in putting off the question, so as soon as we were away from her house, I said, "Your sister asked me to talk to you, about this idea you have that - er, that people are living in your hair."
She looked up at me calmly, with a surprisingly adult expression in her grey eyes, and said, "Yes, I thought perhaps she had."
I said, gently, not wanting to seem unsympathetic or mocking, "What sort of people are they, Ann?"
She answered at once, "They're a tribe of Gauls, the Veneti. They were defeated, you see, by the Romans, in a big sea-battle, and driven out of their homes. They built a new town, but then it was destroyed - it sank in the sea. And so they collected up what they could of their belongings - and now they live in my hair. It's like a forest to them, you see."
I was startled, to say the least.
"But, Ann - how did you come to know about the veneti?"
"I can hear them, talking through my skull."
I said, "How could they all get on to your head, though?"
She gave me a look as closely approaching to impatience.
"Things seem a different size, don't you see, when they're in different places. If I saw you a long way off - you'd look small, wouldn't you? Or if I saw you beside a huge monster." Her eyes widened, and I remembered that, after all, she was still only a six-year-old.
"What sort of language do they talk, these people, Ann?" I wondered where she read or heard of the Venti, who, I recalled, had been conquered by Caesar in Brittany.
"Well, they talk two languages," she told me.
"Can you remember any of the words?"
She spoke a load of words, which was meaningless to me full of x sounds and ch sounds.
"And what is the other language?"
She then startled me by replying, "Una salus victis nulam sperare salutem" (there is but one safe thing for the vanquished; not to hope for safety).
"Where did you hear that Ann?"
"One of them up there said it."
"Can you remember any more?"
"Quid nunc it per iter tenebricosum - "
"Illuc," I said it with her, "unde negant redire quemquam."
"You know that too?" she said, turning the grey eyes on me.
"I have heard it, yes. What was the people's town called, the town that sank in the sea?"
"It was called Is."
"Can you hear them now?" I asked.
"Yes. Just now their holy men are very worried," she said, turning to me, frowning she looked oddly like her sister.
"Why are they worried, Ann?"
"They have signs from, the ones who can tell the future, that there is going to be another very bad happening and that they are going to have to move again, and all the people with their things. Oh!" she cried, I hope Mum isn't going to cut off all my hair! She said she might do that! Please tell her not to, Tiffany!"
"All right Ann, don't worry. I'll tell her."
"I, needless to say was wondering what to do, and hardly looked where I
was going. Which is why I didn't hear the car till it was right behind us.
It was young, feckless Jack Fish. He's now in jail, doing time for manslaughter.
People said I'd had a breakdown after that, and everyone was very sorry for me. But actually it's a lot simpler. What happened was, the Veneti transferred from Ann's head to mine.
